China executes two in child trafficking crackdown

China has executed two men for kidnapping and selling 15 children after
announcing tough measures to combat a rising tide of child abductions.

By Peter Foster in Beijing and agencies

4:21AM GMT 27 Nov 2009

The growth of kidnapping in China has been exacerbated by the one-child policy, which puts a premium on boy-children, and the numbers of rural workers migrating to cities and leaving their children in the care of grandparents.

Organised criminal gangs steal the children and sell them to childless couples who will pay up to $6,000 (£3,670) compared with just $500 (£305) for girls.

“The crime of children trafficking is on the rise,” said Wang Shaonan, a spokesman for China’s Supreme People's Court, “Children trafficking gangs now have a clearer division of work and more children of migrant workers have been abducted.”

A total of 1,714 criminals were punished for abducting and trafficking children in the first 10 months this year, Mr Wang added.

In October Chinese state media reported that 42 suspects were arrested in a single week and were accused of selling 52 children in Northern China.

In the recently announced cases, Hu Minghua, 55, was executed for kidnapping nine children between April 1999 and October 2005, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

Five of the children, all boys aged between three and six, had been returned to their families while the rest were rescued by police but had not found their parents, Xinhua added.

The second man, Su Binde, 27, from central Henan province, was executed for abducting six children between September 2005 and July 2006. Five of the children had been found by police but one five-year-old boy was still missing.

No details were given on where the two executions were carried out.

China launched a crackdown on child abductions in April, with 2,008 children rescued in more than 1,700 trafficking cases as of October 12, Xinhua reported.